John Creasey - Meet The Baron

Lady Kenton interrupted her with characteristic contrariness as she poured out another cup of coffee.

“It does count, Lorna, and don’t make the mistake that it doesn’t. Money matters. Your father will always tell you that, I’m sure.”

Lorna laughed, and regarded her cup.

“I know,” she said. “I refused an offer for a picture six months ago, and I’ve never heard the last of it from Dad.”

“Why did you refuse it?” demanded Lady Kenton.

The offer wasn’t big enough,” said Lorna. “It’s worth four hundred at least, and I was offered only two-fifty,”

“When you reach my age,” said her ladyship thoughtfully, “you will realise it’s never wise to refuse money. Tell me about the picture, my dear,”

Lorna smiled, and described it at some length. She was very nearly sure that Lady Emma Kenton had fallen to the bait, and that before the day was out the picture would be her property, and that Lorna would hold the Kenton cheque for three hundred pounds. Lady Kenton could never resist a bargain.

And Lorna Faundey badly needed three hundred pounds.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A CLOSE SHAVE

THE LETTER THAT MANNERING HAD SENT TO THE YARD HAD achieved its object, thanks to the carelessness of Wrightson and the wide-awake Morning Star man. It had cleared Gerry Long of suspicion in the robbery, but Mannering found that it was a question of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Inspector Bristow was undoubtedly worried about his failure on the job. His anxiety cancelled Mannering’s anticipated pleasure in a conversation with the policeman soon after Bristow had left Regent’s Park and Lady Kenton. It was impossible to revel in another man’s discomfort, and Mannering began to wish that he had never been approached by Bristow. He liked the Inspector, and he disliked the idea of stabbing the man in the back.

Before he left the Yard, however, he was more cheerful.

Superintendent Lynch, who was fond of saying that he had eyes at the back of his head, came into the office, nodded cheerfully to Bristow, shook hands with Mannering, and introduced himself.

“Been talking with the A.C.,” he told the Inspector. “I’m coming on the Baron job with you, Bill. I’ve told him that I think it’s a bigger problem than he fancies, and he’s in a better temper than he was yesterday.”

Bristow’s face cleared. Lynch looked placidly at Mannering.

“We have a dog’s life sometimes,” he said. “It’s all right when we’re going smoothly, but when Old Bill makes a slip or I come a cropper we get a proper shaking-up. But it all blows over. What’s your theory about the Baron, Mr Mannering?”

For a fraction of a second Mannering was afraid that he had given something away, but Lynch was reaching across the desk to help himself to one of Bristow’s cigarettes, and the moment’s respite saved Mannering from making a faux pas.

“I haven’t one,” he said, coolly enough.

“That’s an advantage,” said Lynch, looking at him through a haze of smoke. “I’m glad you’re helping, anyhow.”

They chatted for five minutes, but nothing of importance was mentioned. Mannering left the Yard, smiling cheerfully to himself. He went to Park Square, chatted for ten minutes with Gerry Long, who had recovered as well as had been expected, and who was sitting up in bed. Gerry was sorry for himself, and mad with himself. Mannering told him to forget it.

“It’s so darned silly,” said Long, “that I can’t think of any way of thanking you, Mannering,”

“The chance may crop up,” smiled the other.

He went to his flat, took the Overndon pearls from their hiding-place soon afterwards, and went to Aldgate. On the way — he travelled by taxi — he altered his appearance sufficiently to make reasonably sure that no casual acquaintance would recognise him. At a small barber’s shop in a turning off the High Street he waited for a bald-headed, jolly-faced man to waddle into the back-parlour which he had entered.

“Morning, Mr Mayle,” The bald-headed man wheezed the greeting cheerfully. He was tremendously fat, a fact emphasised by a pair of slacks let out at the waist with a material different in colour and quality, an Oxford shirt without buttons, opening to reveal an expanse of soft, dimply flesh, and a pair of carpet-slippers.

“Same as usual for you, sir?”

Mannering nodded, and smiled.

The fat man grinned, revealing teeth that were surprisingly white and strong. Mannering waited for him patiently, knowing that Harry Pearce could not be hurried. The barber did many things besides cutting hair and shaving week-old stubble. Mannering had been introduced to him by Flick Leverson, that philosophical fence who was now in gaol. Harry supplied all kinds of make-up, and even helped to apply it. He asked no questions, relied on the generosity of his customers for payment, and was not averse to doing a job for nothing. In that strange world of small thieves and petty rogues a man might be penniless one day and rich the next; Harry knew that his credit would rarely be stretched to breaking-point.

He knew Mannering — a Mannering disguised well enough to deceive the casual eye, or the eye of a man who did not know him in regular life — as Mr Mayle, and he appeared to accept the name for gospel. He supplied him with the rubber cheek-pads and the teeth-covering with which Mannering helped to turn himself into the swarthy, full-faced man who visited Dicker Grayson occasionally for the sale of stolen goods. Mannering had discovered that disguise was not so difficult as he had imagined, and the main essential was to act up to the facial alterations.

It was middle afternoon when Mannering reached the wharf in which Grayson worked. That pink-and-white doll of a man was genial and friendly. He knew that he could get good stuff from the other, and when he reached a fair price he knew that there would be no unnecessary haggling. They had now handled several jobs together to their mutual advantage.

Mannering adopted his usual methods.

He grunted in response to Grayson’s “How are you?”, slipped his rubber container from his pocket, upturned it, and let the Overndon pearls stream on to the desk, all without a change of expression.

Grayson’s smile disappeared. His eyes were very hard as he stared at the prize.

“Where’d you get those ?” he demanded in his disconcertingly deep voice.

“That’s neither here nor there,” growled Mannering. “How much ?”

Grayson fingered the pearls. The dim light of the great warehouse prevented him from seeing their true lustre, but he was a keen judge, and he knew what he was handling.

“The Overndons,” he murmured, and for once his voice was very soft.

The sense that had served Mannering well so often came to the fore again. There were times when he had to show spirit and worry Grayson. This was one of them.

He leapt from his chair with an oath. His eyes were blazing, and his lips turned back over his dirty-looking teeth; he seemed at that moment a typical seaman used to rough-houses and prepared to start one now.

“Gut that!” he snarled. “Stick to yer business, Grayson, and don’t try the funny stuff, see, or . . .”

His large, gloved hands clenched, and the pink-and-white man flinched away, but with words and a smile equally conciliatory. He knew that he had broken an unwritten law.

“That’s all right, that’s all right,” he said suavely. “I shouldn’t have asked, I know, but these things have had rather a lot of — er — publicity, haven’t they?”

“That’s as may be,” growled Mannering. “All I want from you’s a price. Name it,”

He was enjoying himself. There was a spice of danger in his meetings with Grayson that he liked; and there was need for him to be on his guard all the time. It enabled him to get used to the acting necessary for his part as the Baron, and he realised the more practice he had the better.

Grayson muttered something under his breath. Then: “They’re dangerous things to handle, very dangerous, my friend,”

“You can smother ‘em till the fuss is over.”

Grayson’s eyes were expressionless.

“So can you,” he said.

Mannering grunted again, and stretched his hand across the table. He knew how to handle Dicker Grayson, and he knew too that he must never let the other man best him.

“Sure,” he said. “So can I. And find another smasher, mister. Let me take ‘em,”

Grayson covered the pearls with his plump pink hands.

“There’s no need to act like that,” he said placatingly. “Don’t forget I take all the risks, son. Five hundred,”

Mannering knew this game by heart.

“Three thousand,” he grunted.

“I’m not a millionaire,” Grayson snapped; then he smiled suddenly, as though he realised that this fencing was useless. “We know each other too well to play, son. I’ll give you twelve hundred,”

Mannering nodded. He seemed disinterested now he had a reasonable offer. One of the things Grayson liked about him was his clean-cut acceptance or refusal of a figure.

“Small notes,” Mannering stipulated.

“I’ll get ‘em,” promised Grayson.

It took the receiver twenty minutes to get the notes. Mannering was used to waiting, and he occupied his time by looking out of the window across the stretch of muddy water that carries the shipping of the world. The Thames and its banks were alive. Through the closed windows came the raucous sound of men’s voices, the blaring of sirens, the clanking of chains, the chug-chug of a giant crane, the continual thump of bales of merchandise being dropped into hatches or barges. There was something fascinating about it, and Mannering forgot that he was acting a part

Something entirely unexpected brought him back to the realisation of it.

He was gradually accustoming himself to the need for constant wariness. It was the unexpected, the emergency which was created in a flash, that was more likely to cause him trouble than anything else. And an emergency came now.

He saw Grayson hurrying into the warehouse yard, and half-turned towards the centre of the room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man who followed Grayson . . . .

Mannering’s eyes narrowed, and his heart beat fast.

It was Tanker — Sergeant Jacob Tring — Bristow’s right-hand man!

There was no doubt about it, Mannering knew. Tanker was dressed in civilian clothes, and he carried them well for a policeman, but his stolid features and rather gloomy expression were unmistakable.

Did Grayson know ? There had been nothing on the face of the fence as he had hurried towards the warehouse to suggest that he had known that he was being followed, but Grayson was a wary bird. He would probably realise the danger, and act accordingly.

Mannering realised it very bitterly; this would happen now.

It looked as if the police were going to question Grayson. The life of a fence was a precarious one, he knew, and if the slightest rumour against him reached the ears of the police he would be raided without delay.

Was Tanker starting a raid? Or was he merely on an errand of inquiry?

It was one of the worst three minutes that Mannering had ever had. He kept looking out of the window, keeping well back in order to make as sure as possible that he was not seen. But what he saw himself made his blood race and his eyes feel hot.

The police-sergeant was not alone!

Three other men, well dressed when compared with the other inhabitants of the wharves, moved slowly towards the warehouse in which Mannering was waiting. The big man saw Grayson disappear, and then watched the plain-clothes men converge on the door. He was thinking all the time of the Overndon pearls; their discovery by the police would finish him.

Mannering turned from the window quickly, but he had hardly reached the table when Grayson burst in. The fence knew all right, even though his expression was cool. He was breathing fast, and he slammed the door behind him.

“Move away!” he snapped, and Mannering obeyed.

Grayson, moving with astonishing speed, pressed a small protuberance in the surface of his desk. It looked no more than a knot of wood, but as his podgy fingers pressed on it a narrow slot was revealed in the side-panel. Grayson stuffed the pearls into it quickly, and released the pressure. The slot closed up, and in spite of his anxiety Mannering was intrigued by its neatness. The cunningness of that hiding-place was increased by the fact that no one could have seen that the desk was anything but solid wood unless they knew of the button-control.

He had little time for thinking, however.

The other seemed to have forgotten him, and hurried across the room, pulled open the door of a small Chubb safe, bundled the packet of notes which he had brought back into it, and slammed the door to.

“Get into that chair,” he snapped. “You’re after a job, understand? The police . . .”

Mannering nodded, and dropped into the seat that was opposite Grayson. The latter slipped into his chair, spread his hands on the desk in front of him, and smiled thinly. Mannering told himself that he had never seen a man act so swiftly and so surely. His opinion of the receiver went up by leaps and bounds.

“So you’ve been waiting for me, eh?” said Grayson, his deep voice filling the office. “Well, I don’t know if I’ve got anything in your line, mate. I . . . Come in,”

He broke off, looking towards the door. It opened, after the merest apology of a knock, and Sergeant Tanker Tring moved into the room, a gloomy smile on his face, his hands deep in his pockets.

“Well ?” Grayson looked puzzled, and Mannering clenched his teeth.

“Don’t waste my time like that,” protested Tanker, a little forlornly. “You know me, Mr Grayson. . . .”

Grayson’s eyes narrowed. And then he smiled. It was beautifully done, and Mannering felt his panic leaving him.

“Tring,” he said, “the policeman. I thought I’d seen you before,”

“I’ll have to dye my hair red,” said Tanker, “and then you’ll be sure,” He seemed completely at his ease as he sat on the corner of the desk, less than a yard from Mannering. He looked down on that big-muscled man with interest.

Mannering’s nerves were stretched to breaking-point. He knew that the slightest slip might give him away, and he was afraid of what would happen if Tanker looked at his eyes too closely. The eyes couldn’t be disguised: they were the danger-spot.

The policeman shrugged his shoulders, as though dis-appointed.

“What’s your name ?” he demanded.

Mannering knew that there was only one attitude he could adopt to be in keeping with his appearance, and never in his life had he been so grateful to Mr Karl Seltzer’s voice-training.

“What the “ell’s that got ter do with you?” he growled.

For a moment his eyes met Tanker’s, but there was no gleam of recognition in the policeman’s. Tanker grinned, and shrugged his shoulders.

“No offence,” he said, “but don’t come it, mate,” He turned to Grayson, who was leaning back in his chair and smiling. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr Grayson” — there was a wealth of sarcasm in that opening — “but I’ve got to look round,”